`Bugged` Package Opened

Officials Arrest Postal Worker

A postal worker has been arrested and charged with illegally opening a package that postal inspectors mailed to an address on the carrier`s route in Boca Raton.

U.S. Postal Service inspectors charged John A. Rolle of Southwest Ninth Court, Delray Beach, with opening a package containing 10 marked silver dollars. The return address on the package was from the King`s Gold & Coin Shop.

According to an affidavit on file in U.S. District Court in West Palm Beach, Rolle was arrested on Tuesday after the package was opened. Rolle has been with the Postal Service, according to the affidavit, since March of 1983.

U.S. Postal Inspector A.J. Lara, in the affidavit, said that on Monday he put together a package and addressed it to a Boca Raton man.

The package also contained a radio transmitter that was used by postal officials to track the package.

Lara, in the affidavit, said the package was placed in the mail by a supervisor at the main Boca Raton Post Office Tuesday morning and was put on Rolle`s route.

The inspector said, in the affidavit, that at about 2:40 p.m., the transmitter signaled that the package had been opened. Investigators found it on the floor of Rolle`s postal jeep.

``The package was found in a rifled condition on the floor of the jeep,`` Lara wrote in the affidavit. ``Located next to the package was one of the marked silver dollars.``

Rolle, according to the affidavit, told investigators that he was moving the package from the rear of the jeep to the front when he accidentally tore the package. He said, according to the affidavit, that he felt the contents of the package and then wrapped it with a rubber band.